


That Greek Myth

by Paraxdisepink



Series: Out of the Ice [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Action, Angst, Crime Fighting, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protectiveness, Psychological Trauma, Pushy Bottoms, Roughness, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:49:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky has disappeared after being freed by Steve of the Winter Soldier brainwashing. Steve finds him again, but nothing is as easy as he’d hoped.  Angst, some hijinx, and other things ensue. Movieverse, with a little comics stuff tossed in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Greek Myth

Ilyin's black van rolled downhill in Steve's direction, the only vehicle on the wet, narrow road. Given that the police were said to look the other way to the kind of crime men like Ilyin ran in this town—drugs and kidnapping girls into prostitution—Steve didn't blame anyone for not going out at night, even if that was no way to live in a free country. 

The van crossed the intersection onto the block where Steve waited. He balanced on the edge of the rooftop where the quinjet had landed him, ready to jump. Ilyin wouldn't see him coming. This place was more a relic of another century than Steve was with the way no one had cut down the trees towering against the old buildings. They did a good job of hiding him from view. 

This wasn't his usual mission these days, crouching alone in the rain in an Estonian town on the Baltic Sea. Steve's job was to lead the team now against threats to his country in the open. But if Fury was right and the bomb Ilyin had planted in Las Vegas last month was HYDRA technology then this was where Steve belonged. He couldn't let HYDRA hurt anyone else and Ilyin's connection to Department X made this personal. 

Another five yards and Ilyin would be under him. Steve took a deep breath, watched the gap close, and leapt onto the top of the van. It was slippery with the rain, but he kept his footing. He crouched on one knee and smashed the back window with his shield.

Glass flew everywhere. The van skidded a few more yards, struck the tree that had shielded Steve a moment ago and slammed to a halt. Five men poured out, all black-clothed thugs yelling in Russian and leveling guns.

Ready for them, Steve leapt on the one nearest him at the rear of the van, knocking the gun out of his grip and smashing him to the ground with his shield. A second man aimed his weapon and Steve turned with the shield in time to deflect the blue flash of a laser beam. HYDRA guns. Steve shouldn't have been surprised. Ilyin must have found another source to power them without the Cube. The shield turned the laser beam back on the man who had shot at Steve, but instead of disintegrating, he flew backward and hit the side of the building. Great. Street thugs now had suits to protect themselves from the blasts, then. Steve would have to get one back to SHIELD so Tony could figure out how they worked. 

A third man ran for him. A throw of the shield hit him across the knees and knocked him to the asphalt. In that moment, the van peeled away in a scream of tires. Ilyin had never gotten out. Steve retrieved his shield and made to chase him down, but he had two more of Ilyin's men to deal with and one was raising his gun, thinking to fire on Steve while he was distracted watching the van speed away. 

Steve's reflexes were too quick for that to work. The shield caught the beam and bounced it off. This one was faster than the others though, probably another former soldier like Ilyin. He dodged and fired again. Steve's block was sloppy this time, and just as he got his shield up, the fifth man took aim. Even with his enhanced responses, Steve barely had a chance to block that too. They kept firing, at a more rapid rate than the HYDRA guns Steve remembered. The shield couldn't cover him everywhere at once and before he knew it he was flying backward with the impact of a hit to the side and landing hard. Pain thundered through him, but he made to roll to his feet on instinct, except one of the men had gotten behind him and Steve looked up into a gun aimed directly at his face. The split second panic was dizzying. The uniform would protect him from the energy blast, but his bare flesh sure wouldn't. 

Something flashed out of the tree across the street before he could react, knocking both man and gun backward onto the ground. It was a combat knife, sticking straight out of the man's chest. Steve didn't know whether to call the accuracy of the throw impressive or terrifying, but it got its target square in the heart. Steve stood, looking around. He had already lost Ilyin for now and the man left standing took off running rather than fight alone. No one came down from the tree though. Steve looked more closely at the knife. It wasn't the first time he had seen one like it. 

His heart beat faster than it had in the fight a moment ago, half strangled with hope. The _thing_ the Red Room had turned Bucky into had carried a knife like that, and if it wasn't an arrow, he was the only person Steve knew who had that kind of aim, or did now anyway. 

_He's one of the most dangerous men I know,_ Natasha had said of the Winter Soldier, but all Steve could think was _please let Bucky be alive._

For weeks Steve had prayed and waited for a trace of him. Steve saw the flash of the Cube again and Bucky falling to the ground, screaming. Fury and Sharon insisted he had obliterated himself crushing the Cube in his metal fist in an explosion of blue energy, that it was better that way, that no one could be sane after what the Red Room had done to him and made him do. Steve had refused to listen. Bucky was stronger than that and Steve had seen Schmidt disappear in a flash of the Cube and survive, why not Bucky? If he was here Steve couldn't lose him again.

He scanned the tree where the knife had come from, but saw nothing in the branches. Part of Steve knew he wouldn't. No one saw the Winter Soldier coming or going. His kills looked like perfect accidents. But Bucky wasn't the Winter Soldier anymore, and the rest of Steve couldn't understand why Bucky would hide from him. They were brothers.

Doing the only thing he could think of to get him to give away his position, Steve hurled the shield and held his breath. The leaves rustled and just as Steve had hoped, a gloved hand caught his throw. He could see Bucky balanced on one of the thicker branches now that he had leaned forward, wearing a black leather jacket and dark jeans—modern clothes meant to blend in the way they said Bucky had on his missions. The clothes didn't matter. The rush of relief at seeing him alive squeezed Steve's chest so strongly it hurt. 

Bucky raised the shield to throw it back, glancing over his shoulder as if carving out an escape now that he had let himself be caught. Panic seized Steve like an asthma attack. These past weeks Bucky had shown how good he had become at disappearing. If he fled across these rooftops Steve was afraid he would never find him. 

He couldn't lose him all over again. Steve ran to climb the tree. Dammit, what did Bucky think he had to run from?

“Just talk to me, Buck.” Steve grabbed a branch and pulled himself up. “Please.” What did Bucky think he was going to do? Hold him responsible for crimes he'd had no control over? Or had he gone mad like Fury said he would? Maybe he didn't know what a friend was anymore. 

Bucky slid off the branch onto his feet on the wet rooftop, Steve's shield under his left arm—the metal one covered by his jacket and his glove. He was pale and hadn't shaved for days and though that was nothing new, he just looked so wound up and beaten down. Steve saw him falling to his knees again in the blue light of the Cube, his face in his hands as if he wanted to block out what was coming back. _Just kill me, just kill me, just kill me!_ he had screamed over and over before destroying the Cube and vanishing altogether. His eyes went to the roof tiles the minute Steve stood in front of him now, as if it would kill him to meet Steve's eyes, but he was the first to speak. 

“Had him on the ropes, right?” Bucky glanced toward the body in the middle of the street with his knife in it. “You used to say that.” His voice was lifeless, but his eyes were the worst, far-off and shocked numb. Steve had seen a little of that when he had brought him out of Zola's lab, but this—Bucky here, but a complete shadow of himself—was unbearble. 

“Five against one's never fair.” Steve kept his tone light, hoping talking like nothing was different would put Bucky at ease. The shock of what had happened to Bucky hadn't worn off for Steve either though. He wanted to clutch him and tell him he couldn't believe he was here, in this future, alive, yet he cautiously kept his distance. “Good thing you aren't Ilyin's biggest fan either.” 

Relieved as Steve was to have found him, he had a dozen questions about what Bucky was doing here. Revenge? Ilyin was a rogue remnant of Department X and might know the whereabouts of others like him. Hunting down those that had used him wasn't a life Steve wanted to see Bucky fall into, but at least it was one he could be brought back from. 

Bucky shrugged. “He's planning on blowing up D.C.”

And how did he know that when Fury only knew Ilyin was planning something big? Stupid question. Bucky wasn't just Bucky anymore. He was an assassin and a spy. He could have been tracking Ilyin for some time without anyone knowing.

“He's meeting with the son of a HYDRA scientist later tonight. I'm here to keep that from happening.” 

“He's looking to take Lukin's place now that he's gone off the gird,” Bucky told him in that same dead voice. “But Illyn doesn't have the Cube so going to HYDRA for help is all he's got.”

“Lukin? The one controlling you?” Steve said just to keep Bucky talking.

Bucky's eyes went to the roof tiles again. Steve remembered him back in Brooklyin, so sure of himself and handsome in his dress uniform. This was a different man altogether. “Ilyin wants something easier to control this time. Guys like him hate America and are out to do all the damage they can. He's building robots to replace-” 

He swallowed. _Me,_ Bucky was too ashamed to say. Ilyin wanted to replace the Winter Soldier, the one weapon the Soviet government had believed could do more damage than an army. Was that why Bucky was here? Did he think this was his mess to clean up? His fault? It angered Steve that he would, but though HYDRA and ex-KGB terrorists weren't what Steve wanted to talk about after finding each other alive again, it was something to latch onto. 

“Then we have to stop him. I've been on ice for seventy years, Buck. I slept through the Cold War. I don't know anything about how guys like Ilyin think. I could use your help. You could save a lot of people. I know that means something to you.” Bucky could say what he wanted, but he had never liked bullies any better than Steve did. He wouldn't have stepped in to defend him so often otherwise.

Bucky hesitated. There was something in him that would much rather fade away into the night. It choked Steve to see it. It used to be a given that they did everything together, but look where that had gotten Bucky? It didn't matter. Steve wasn't leaving him here.

Slowly, Bucky let out a breath. “Why not,” he shrugged tiredly. “But I won't kill anybody, if that's what you want.” His eyes went to the body again. “Combat's different.”

Why would he think...? Steve stopped himself. Fury had estimated Bucky had spent a total of five years out of the ice during his time with the Russians. Steve didn't know how that worked for him, whether it felt like five years since they had seen each other or if one moment Bucky was falling to his death and coming-to the next in a building in West Virginia like jolting awake from a dream, the way it had been for Steve. He didn't want to press him with too many questions, but if it was the former it wasn't hard to see why Bucky would think killing was all anyone would want with him. Steve remembered him in his blue coat with his Tommy gun slung over his shoulder. During the war Bucky never flinched from putting bullets in HYDRA soldiers. Seeing the inside of a Nazi prison camp had done that to him. 

“I plan on taking Ilyin alive and bringing him to justice. He disintegrated over two-hundred people in a bombing last month. It's no fun stopping him alone. How about it, Buck?” Steve didn't mention that he had the cooperation of the Estonian government and that SHIELD back-up was just a call away. He had no idea whether Bucky would perceive them as a threat and run. 

Bucky handed the shield back, turned, and slipped off the roof without a word. Steve's heart froze watching him grab the edge and drop, but he landed light on his feet and Steve climbed down after him before Bucky changed his mind and vanished again. 

The wind was picking up, blowing the rain on them. Bucky didn't seem to feel it. His eyes went to the man he had killed and the energy gun he had dropped. Steve could see what the Winter Soldier's instincts told him to do—remove the protective suit, fire the gun, and make the body disappear. Bucky clenched his jaw like he wanted to be sick and looked away. Steve pretended not to notice. He wasn't as worried about the dead guy and his trio of unconscious friends as he was about leaving those guns lying around. Following Bucky's line of thinking, he piled three together and disintegrated them with a blast from the fourth. That one, Steve disassembled, pocketed what looked like a crystal shaving for Tony and Bruce to study, and threw the ordinary gun parts in the dumpster nearby. 

He and Bucky turned up a side street and keep walking. Bucky stayed silent the entire time and his footsteps didn't make a sound. Quiet and efficient: the mark of the Winter Soldier.

They ended up across the street from an old warehouse near the water, on the roof of a coffee shop that had closed down a long time ago. The wind howled, and with the untouched scenery and the lack of neon signs and gaudy buildings everywhere, Steve almost felt like they were back in Italy or Southern France, sitting outside late at night just the two of them. Only this wasn't Bucky cleaning his gun and laughing at the other Commandos. It felt like that Bucky was lost in the life Steve couldn't go back to and this was just a shell of him making the reminder of that loss all the more painful. 

Bucky sat with his arms around his knees several feet away, staring off at nothing. The rain was coming down hard and his hair and clothes were soaked, but he was just... elsewhere. 

_Just keep him talking,_ Steve ordered himself.

“How did you lose your arm?”

Bucky flexed the fingers of his left hand. He seemed able to use it as well as his right. “They made me think it was frostbite. The Red Room could implant things in your head and make you think whatever they wanted. But now I know frostbite wasn't it. I remember everything after what you did with the Cube. They cut the arm off early on and kept fitting me with better and better ones. At first I was just an experiment for them. I guess they wanted to see if they could make me into some kind of human robot.”

 _Jesus!_ If Bucky remembered that then he had been awake at the time. Frostbite had been Steve's assumption, but it didn't make sense. Fury speculated Zola must have given Bucky a version of Erskine's formula while he had him on his table. If that was what had enabled Bucky to survive the fall then the serum wouldn't preserve every part of him but one arm. God... 

“I'm so sorry, Bucky.”

“Wish they'd killed me,” Bucky said quietly. He eyed the street below. “I'd tell you you were stupid for coming out here alone, but I know you're not.”

Stupid or alone? Part of Steve had been alone since the day Bucky died. 

“I'm not." He put on a forced smile. "I've got you now, and I think it's time you came home. Brooklyn isn't the same without you.” Steve thought about what Loki had done to Clint, and about Natasha and Bruce, and wondered whether they would be any help to Bucky. They would understand what he had gone through better than he could. 

Bucky shook his head. “No one's going to let me do that, Steve.”

“Why not?” Steve struggled not to lose his patience. Every effort he made here was like hitting a wall. “The few people who know about the Winter Soldier know the Russians reprogrammed your mind. You're not the first person they've seen take lives under someone else's control or the only victim of the Red Room either. Besides, you can't keep doing this, running from the people who care about you and hiding in the shadows. How are you going to eat, how are you going to live, Bucky? If nothing else, you can't go around with a bleeding star on your arm.” Steve took a breath. “You can still do a lot of good. I know you can.”

Bucky sighed. “You know, I went to Brooklyn right after you thought you cured me. I don't know how, but the Cube took me there. It didn't feel like home.”

“It's a new century, Bucky.”

“That's not it.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I remember everything, but it's not my life from before I keep seeing. It's the things I did. They come in flashes and everything goes red. Waiting from one to the next feels like I can't move and someone's...” He gave up and broke off.

Like someone was torturing him. Between HYDRA and Department X Bucky would know a lot about that. But what Bucky was telling hit Steve like a kick to the stomach. He hadn't just undone the Red Room's brainwashing and restored Bucky to himself with the Cube, he had tortured him over and over with remembering everything they had done to him and everything they had made him do and wiped from his mind afterward. God... Steve felt nauseas. He couldn't let him go through this alone.

“When it's not that,” Bucky continued. “I barely know who I am, or what.”

Steve slid close enough to put a hand on his shoulder. “You're James Barnes. Your friends call you 'Bucky'. You were a sergeant in the Second World War and fell into a river during a mission targeting a Nazi scientist. The Russians retrieved you and turned you— against your will—into a weapon. None of it was your fault, it's the year 2013, and you're safe now. Say it to yourself.” Steve didn't know where he had seen it—he read a lot these days—but one book had claimed repeating basic facts to yourself after a massive trauma helped keep you grounded. 

“Not so sure about that,” Bucky said. “The Red Room made me into the Winter Soldier, but it's my fault I was good at it.” 

Any expert marksman or fighter would be good at being a weapon with their conscience overridden by programming, but Steve wondered whether Bucky telling himself it was his fault was easier than facing the fact of the control the Red Room had taken away. 

Another heartbeat and Bucky's head came up. “There.” Ilyin's van rolled up behind the warehouse. “You have a plan? People expect Captain America to come through the front door.”

If that was true, they only heard the stories the news reels told. More than a few of their missions during the war involved sneaking up or sneaking in, with Bucky picking off HYDRA guards with his rifle and the rest of the Commandos doing what they did. After failing to catch Steve the first time, Ilyin might expect him to come charging in with Avengers back-up though, an expectation which could work in Steve's favor. 

The warehouse was old. Smashing one of its thin windows with his shield would make too much noise, but by the looks of them they shouldn't be too hard to pry. 

“Guess we'll have to rely on the element of surprise," Steve tried to say brightly. "It'll be just like that weapons facility we snuck into in Calais. HYDRA never saw us. Remember?”

He watched Bucky's face for some indication these were good times for him, but all Steve got was a flat, “Zola never showed up and I got sick for two weeks from whatever shit I breathed in for hours in that crawl space.”

True, but they had learned the location of amother HYDRA base that wasn't on Schmidt's map.

It started to pour and the wind was downright violent, screaming and bending the branches of the trees. The suit repelled most of it and Steve's cowl kept his head dry, but Bucky's hair was plastered to his scalp by now and he had to be soaked and freezing. Steve wished he could cover both of them in the suit and keep him warm. He couldn't explain it, but knowing Bucky was alive wasn't enough anymore. The distance killed him, the few feet between them, Bucky so withdrawn Steve couldn't tell whether Bucky was happy they were here together or not. Maybe he hated Steve for what the Cube had really done.

Ilyin got out of his van and went in through the front of the building. Two of his thugs followed, the one who had run from Steve and a new one, both with their modified energy guns.

“Same old HYDRA,” Bucky muttered. 

Steve nodded. Kill one and more sprang up in his place. He didn't see this Alfons Hoch Ilyin was supposed to meet though. He must be waiting nside. 

Steve waited a few more minutes, then motioned across the street. “After you, Buck.”

They went around the side of the building opposite the way Ilyin had gone. He had taken his thugs inside with him rather than leaving them as lookouts. If he was worried about Captain America returning, then he really wasn't counting on him to try sneaking up on him again. 

The old metal-framed windows were just high enough for Steve to reach. He didn't have to bother prying one open. The wind had rattled them so badly one had come loose from its mounting, frame and all, just like the windows in their old apartment in Brooklyn would. Steve pulled it out and laid it down as quietly as he could, standing back to let Bucky climb inside.

They ended up in a dark and dusty back room. Whoever had owned this place before had left a few wooden crates and not much else. Bucky opened one and quickly shoved it out of his way with his boot.

“Used to be some kind of shipping company. Nothing important.”

Nodding, Steve glanced up and pointed to a hatch door in the ceiling. 

Bucky didn't look too happy about climbing up there. “At least it's not zip lines,” he grumbled.

That wasn't funny. For the thousandth time Steve saw Bucky falling, uselessly reaching out for him. He blinked. He had to focus. He pushed one of the taller crates under the hatch and motioned for Bucky to go first. He had to keep Bucky ahead of him. The idea of looking back and not finding him there was too unbearable. 

Even with the crate, Steve had to boost him up to reach. He was a lot heavier than Steve remembered. Must be the arm. Once he made it up, Bucky lowered himself onto his stomach and pointed to Steve's shield on his back then to something next to him Steve couldn't see in the thin light. He understood though; whatever was up there, the shield would make too much noise banging against it. 

Bucky unzipped his coat and Steve handed the shield up to him, hearing him arrange leather and metal to cushion the edges. He wasn't just Bucky anymore, Steve reminded himself for the dozenth time. Stealth must have become second nature to him. 

The crawl space was low, claustrophobic, and narrow with heavy pipes not leaving much room to actually crawl. They slid forward on their stomachs in the dark, toward the sound of voices at the front of the building.There was another hatch there, a square of yellow light ahead where it didn't have a door. Steve slid up next to Bucky at its edge, shoulder-to-shoulder and pressed against his side full length. It was distracting and reassuring at the same time.

If the same held for Bucky he didn't show it. He was intent on the scene below. Ilyin and a greying man who must be Alfons Hoch sat across from one another at a plain metal folding table. Ilyin's two thugs against one wall and Hoch's facing them against the other. All four had their guns trained and Steve didn't doubt Hoch's men had the same energy-powered weapons. Hoch was officially a businessman who dealt in technologies, like Tony, but he had HYDRA's zeal written all over him. 

They spoke in fast Russian, which Bucky seemed to understand as well as Natasha would have. He slid just a little closer, touched the fingertip of his right hand to the star on Steve's chest and mouthed the word “revenge.” 

_That_ was all Steve needed, someone else with a score to settle. Steve didn't remember the name "Hoch" from the war, but if his father had been a scientist then he must have gotten caught in the crossfire in one of the HYDRA bases they had taken down. Steve touched Bucky's hand just to tell him was glad he was there and watched his mouth for more translation. They were so close a tilt of Bucky's head and the stubble on his cheek would scrape Steve's. He couldn't understand why the thought was so thrilling. 

Hoch and Ilyin kept talking. Steve let them grow adsorbed in working out the sordid details of their partnership and pointed to his shield pushed under a pipe beside him and then at the men with their guns. If he could knock them out of their hands with a good throw and take for granted one side would think the other had betrayed him, he and Bucky could take all six while they turned on each other. 

Bucky nudged Steve with his foot to hurry up and Steve lifted the shield as carefully as he could. He wasn't careful enough and the space was too tight. The edge clanged against one of the pipes and four HYDRA guns swung in their direction, aimed to fire.

Without thinking, Steve grabbed Bucky around the waist, pulling him tight against his chest and throwing them both to one side, shield in the other hand to block the energy blasts as they came. Bucky exhaled sharply, his heart beating fast against Steve's arms and his dark hair that never could stay neat for long tickling Steve's chin. In that split second, pressed to the heavy heat of him, Steve stopped feeling half so lost in this future. 

“You gotta admit this feels right, Buck,” he breathed in his ear. 

Bucky gave a grunt that could have meant anything, twisting around in Steve's hold in one silky motion, rising to his knees and straddling him. Steve bit his lower lip to hold in a sound. Dammit, where did Bucky learn to move like that?

Eyes on the scene below, he peeled the glove from his left hand, reached under the short sleeve of his shirt, and detached his metal arm with a click. 

Steve stared up at him, unprepared for how vulnerable and imbalanced Bucky looked with one sleeve hanging empty. Steve wanted to push him back further into the crawlspace to get him away from the men with their guns, but Bucky's blue-grey eyes were as cold the metal across his knees, so dangerous even with one arm Steve swallowed the urge. 

“Element of surprise, right?” Bucky whispered.

For a bare second, Steve was afraid he meant to throw the thing and hit one of the men below with it, but Bucky dropped it down the hatch, adopted a look of concentration, and Steve watched in complete shock as it hit the ground and crawled toward Ilyin's thugs as though it were alive. Steve looked back at Bucky, but now wasn't the time to ask how the hell he was able to control his metal arm with his mind. 

Ilyin's men scrambled back from it, yelling in Russian. One tried shooting it, but whatever the arm was made of, the energy guns didn't work any better on it than they did on the shield. Bucky slipped off him, not imbalanced at all, and Steve took advantage of the distraction he had created. 

Snatching up his shield, he leapt to the ground below, crashing into one of Ilyin's thugs on the way down and knocking aside the other by driving the shield into his face. Bucky was right behind him and had reattached his arm by the time Steve glanced back, kicking the guns Ilyin's men had dropped to the other side of the room where anyone would have to get past Steve to get them. One of Hoch's men ran for Bucky, but a punch from Bucky's left fist sent him flying. The degree of force wasn't quite Thor's hammer, but it was more than he had swung with in any alley back home and it knocked the man unconscious when he landed.

Without his men, Ilyin didn't seem to know what to do. He tried running toward the door, but a throw of the shield knocked his feet out from under him and he dropped hard face-first on the floor. Hoch, who had retreated to the corner, shouldered his gun. His grip was clumsy and Steve didn't think he really knew how to use it. Steve jumped onto the table and leapt at him. They both crashed to the ground, gun spinning out of Hoch's grip. Steve pinned him with an arm to the throat to keep him from trying to get up and knocked him out with the edge of the shield. He turned. Bucky was on the ground too, grappling with Hoch's other goon. He had the upper hand, but one of Ilyin's men had managed to get up again and had grabbed the gun Hoch had dropped. Praying his enhanced reflexes wouldn't fail him, Steve crawled the few feet to Ilyin and snatched a regular pistol off his hip, sliding it to Bucky across the floor. Grabbing it, Bucky raised himself to his knees and shot Ilyin's man in the forehead just as he was about to fire.

The sound of the shot shocked Bucky out of the adrenaline rush. He looked at the body, squeezed his eyes shut to flinch away from whatever violence he was remembering, and paled like he really would throw up.

Ilyin stirred. Steve put a foot on his back. “The only place you're going is to face justice for your crimes.”

Ilyin turned his head and stared at him blankly. Bucky translated in Russian, but Steve had the feeling Ilyin understood and was just playing dumb. Steve put his lights out with a punch to his temple. 

Bucky's eyes went back to the man he had shot, to the blood leaking down his face, and Steve went to him.

“He was a terrorist, Buck. He was planning to kill innocent people. You stopped him.” In combat sometimes a soldier had to kill, but Bucky's gaze was so distant Steve wasn't sure he heard.

Giving Bucky a minute, he took the opportunity to type a message to SHIELD on his computer-phone, reporting that he had Ilyin and Hoch and would need extraction as soon as possible. An answer came in the instantaneous way of the new millennium. _You'll have to sit tight for a few hours. The storm's too bad to fly in._

Steve listened outside. He had been deaf to the weather during the fight, but both the rain and wind were pounding the building. He didn't bother calling in to ask when they expected it to clear.

Bucky was watching him, on edge all over again. “That your people?”

“I just think of them as the SSR, Bucky. They call themselves SHIELD now. They have to wait for the storm to clear before they can send a plane in. I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do with these guys in the meantime.”

Bucky grabbed his jacket that had fallen out of the attic when they jumped. He zipped it up and shoved his new gun into his pants. “There's an underground safehouse beneath the building. There's dozens of them all across Eastern Europe. You can drag these guys down there and lock them up until your people come.”

He kept his back to Steve as he said it, looking out of a small window high on the wall. Steve's heart dropped. He was considering how to get away. Something about SHIELD had made him want to run again. Dammit, they had stopped a terrorist together. They made a good team. Bucky had nothing to run from.

Steve groped for an excuse to buy himself time. 

“There's five of them. I could use a hand.”

For another long moment, Bucky just continued staring out of the window, but the rigid set of his shoulders dropped and he rubbed a hand through his disheveled hair, sighing as if frustrated. That, at least, was familiar between them. 

“This way.” He took off toward a smaller back room with a door leading outside. Steve didn't bother asking how he knew so much about underground safehouses around here. 

The entrance to the bunker lay underneath the loose boards of a ramp leading out to a loading area off a back alley. Steve sent Bucky with one man at a time while he kept watch on the others. They saved Ilyin for last. He was bigger than both of them and easier to maneuver down the narrow stairs between two people.

Were Steve still small, the wind outside could have blown him over. The relentless rain had drenched Bucky all over again after several trips back and forth, coming down so hard the alley was flooded. Steve let him go first down into the darkness where he had Ilyin by the feet. 

The place was as small as their old apartment in Brooklyn and just as cold, but it was dry, had a bathroom and bottled water and some other supplies stacked against one wall. Bucky had cleared them out of the storage closets in the back and locked their prisoners inside instead, with crates slid against the doors just in case they tried to escape. Steve guessed the place had been stocked with weapons and ammo at one time and didn't want to think about who was keeping the water and electricity running these days. He threw the HYDRA guns in a closet of their own and when he came out front again to ask whether they had to worry about anyone coming, he found Bucky at the foot of the stairs, staring up at the bunker's trap door.

“You did it, Cap,” he said just like he had dozens of times during the war, only now there wasn't any pride in it or any emotion at all for that matter. “You got Ilyin. Saved a bunch of lives.”

“We did it,” Steve reminded him, hoping that would mean something. Death and seventy years and the Red Room's evil and the two of them together was still what felt... normal and right. 

Bucky took a deep breath and let it out again. “Maybe,” he said after a pause. He looked down and pulled his leather glove over his metal fingers. “Take care of yourself, Steve.”

He turned for the stairs. Steve stood for half a heartbeat like Thor had slammed his hammer into his chest. Then all his desperation and frustration boiled over into anger.

“That's what you're going to do? Run away again?”

He was yelling. Of all the impossible miracles, after both of them had _died,_ they had found each other alive in this awful future. Why should what the Red Room had done take that away? Why couldn't Bucky let him help him? 

Bucky didn't yell back, just said in that same empty voice, “You're everything you ever wanted to be now, Steve. You don't need your people seeing you with someone like me. What do you think's gonna happen?”

When had Bucky become such a martyr? Back in the war it took a damn good argument to convince Bucky to leave him when Steve needed someone he could count on for something more important than watching his back. Steve couldn't take this.

“Damnit, Bucky!” He grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him against the wall. “You're my best friend. We grew up together. You're my _family._ If you think parading around in the Stars and Stripes and some tights means more to me than that then try and remember me a little better.” 

He gripped Bucky so tight his fingers hurt. Bucky went rigid and completely still. His head came up and for a flicker of a moment, trapped like this, Steve watched him struggle with all the violence that—ingrained in him against his will or not—had become instinct now. Steve couldn't tell which Bucky was more afraid of, hurting Steve or Steve hurting him. The way Bucky stared through him, he didn't seem to see Steve at all, just a threat. 

Ashamed, Steve let him go, overly conscious of the fact that he was three times as strong and of the things that had been done to him. No matter how much Steve exasperated Bucky growing up, getting himself beat up at every turn, Bucky had never once thrown his weight around to make him listen. 

Bucky blinked and came back to himself. “I'm just trying to do the right thing here.” He wet his lips. “Let's face it, looking out for you is the one good thing I've done.”

Was that what he thought he was doing by running away? Protecting him like Steve was still the little guy he had to run in and save in some back alley? Steve felt like that little guy again, swinging ineffectively only for Bucky's guilt and self-loathing to keep knocking him flat. There had to be a way to make him see that all he was doing was letting Department X destroy him and abandoning Steve in this new century he hated in the process, but right now, Steve didn't have the words. 

“You know that's not true. Come on. Enough of this.” 

Steve got one arm and then the other around him and tried to pull Bucky into a hug. Bucky struggled in his grip, either because he didn't think he deserved one or because he couldn't stand being confined. Either way, Steve struggled to hold onto him, not about to let him slip away and do God knew what. “Bucky, _stop._ ” Steve pressed him into the wall and slid a knee between his legs to keep him still.

Bucky let out a sharp sound. The sudden sting of teeth at Steve's neck where he had pushed the cowl back zipped through Steve's body like a current of electricity. His cock instantly responded. 

Steve pulled back and they stared at each other, both breathing fast as though from a much harder struggle. Everything between them froze as it slowly dawned on Bucky that he hadn't bitten Steve to get away.

It scared him, Steve could understand that, one revelation too many these days. But Steve had stopped thinking clearly and one instant his eyes went to Bucky's parted lips and the next he was diving for him.

He may as well have jumped from that speeding train after Bucky in the ice. That's what it felt like Steve was doing, terrified and determined at the same time, clutching at Bucky's cold, soaked clothes. Steve slapped a hand against the wall and crushed their mouths together so hard Bucky's head bumped against the plaster. Steve kept him there with his thigh pressed to Bucky's full length. Bucky's hands went to his shoulders, but he didn't try to break free.

Steve pulled back and a moment of paralyzing fear set in under the heat rushing through him that he had done the one thing that would make Bucky not want anything more to do with him. Steve forced himself to look at him. Bucky's breathing had quickened and his mouth, a shade redder now, curved up in a shadow of its old smirk. 

“Family, huh?” his voice was rough.

Steve's face went red. He had no idea where that kiss had come from. He saw men kissing all the time now and it made him miss Bucky more, but he chalked that up to missing being truly close to someone at all and the fact that the more his friends poked fun at him, the more he wished Bucky were there to commiserate over how strange everything had become. 

But then Steve saw himself in the corner of an old dance hall, watching Bucky swing girls across the floor while Steve got lonelier as the night went on. He could feel the warmth of Bucky's arm around his shoulders as they walked home in the cold, hear Bucky insisting that all he had to do was work up the courage to ask and the right girl would say she'd love to dance with him. He knew Bucky meant well, but Steve had gotten fed up with his pushing. 

_I'm happy when it's just you and me,_ Steve had looked up into Bucky's eyes to say it, wondering why he couldn't be tall and handsome and desired like him. Steve remembered the nervous way Bucky had glanced around, afraid someone had overheard, but he never took his arm from around Steve's shoulders. The first attempt at a double date had happened not long after

Bucky's metal fingers hauled him forward by the star on his chest. With it, at least, he was as strong and as fast as Steve, though Steve wasn't fighting when Bucky's mouth ground against his. Steve had seen Bucky kiss girls left and right, but never like it was part of a deadly instinct to get the upper hand. His mouth was hot, the rough scrape of stubble thrilling, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't Bucky promising to come home with him. 

Steve pushed his tongue past Bucky's lips and when Bucky groaned in response he finally felt like he had something to fight back with. He grabbed the zipper of Bucky's wet coat and yanked it down, and before Steve knew it he was shoving a hand under the soaked layers of clothing, desperate to find Bucky warm and really there underneath and not some shadow of him. His palm moved over the hard, rippling muscle of Buckly's stomach and mindlessly found its way to the edge of his jeans.

Bucky, with the Winter Soldier's quick and lethal reflexes, caught Steve's wrist from underneath. “Why would you want this?” he demanded in a thick rough voice.

Steve didn't know whether Bucky meant because of what he'd been or because he wasn't a girl. At that moment, neither mattered.

“I thought you were dead.” It came out in something between a growl and a plea. “I missed you. Damn it, I'm tired of feeling alone even when I'm not.” _I love you_ , Steve didn't know how to say, and in what way didn't matter. “Just say 'stop', Buck, if you don't want this."

Bucky pressed his lips together and swallowed as though the word was too much for him. Letting go of Steve's wrist, he looked up, let himself really see Steve's desperation, and the fight went out of him. 

“Do whatever you want.” It wasn't much more than a hoarse whisper. “You wanna beat the crap out of me for whatever I've put you through, I'll take that too. Probably deserve-”

Shoving him back against the wall, Steve shut him up by kissing him hard. He didn't know what else to do. Talking to him and telling him it wasn't his fault hadn't done any good. Bucky's mouth opened for his tongue again and the world narrowed to the pounding of blood in Steve's ears, the demanding ache between his legs. and Bucky's muffled hungry noises. Steve couldn't help it; he jerked his hips into him. Bucky was hard and feeling the hot length of him through his jeans only made Steve harder. His mouth slid to Bucky's jaw and down one side of his neck. Bucky leaned his head back and let him, more starved for this than he must have realized.

He didn't keep still though. His hands went to Steve's sides and tugged the top half his uniform free of his belt, knuckles tickling Steve's ribs in the process. Steve pulled back long enough to strip it over his head and toss it aside and then he was pushing Bucky's jacket off his shoulders and scrabbling to get him out of his wet shirt in a hurry to feel skin on skin before either of them thought too hard about what they were doing.

Thank god the shirt buttoned, but the material stuck to Bucky's skin and took some helpful and painfully arousing twisting on Bucky's part to get him out of it. God, what had the Russians trained him to do to move like that? It was a shock seeing him without a shirt though, the way warm pale skin gave way to cold grey metal at Bucky's left shoulder. Steve kissed the line where metal met skin and pulled Bucky against him, so sorry for what he had been through, but heat and need overwhelmed guilt and before Steve knew it he was pulling Bucky down to the floor.

It was cold industrial linoleum. Steve shoved Bucky's coat under him at the last minute and braced himself on hands and knees over him. He ran one hand down Bucky's chest and took in the sight of him bare to the waist on his back. Bucky was all rippling muscle and handsome features and wild wet hair and stormy blue eyes and didn't need any Super Soldier Serum to look like that. Faint scars marked his body Steve didn't want to think about, didn't want Bucky thinking about. He kissed him open-mouthed, pulled the gun out of his jeans to get it out of the way, and sank down on top of him, grinding his near-paiful erection into Bucky's as if that could make him understand...

Boots scraped linoleum as Bucky slid his heels up, cradling Steve between the heat of his thighs. A cold metal hand grabbed the back of Steve's neck and Bucky whispered, thick and raspy against his mouth, “Just do it. Fuck me.”

Sharp excitement shot along Steve's spine and through his cock. He let out a strangled sound and then he was fumbling with one hand to pull Bucky's shoe off and clawing his belt open with both to peel Bucky out of his wet jeans. Steve's hands brushed his hips, his ass, and his thighs in the effort, Bucky's skin wet and cold. He got the other boot off and the pants were gone. Steve slid closer on his knees and pulled Bucky's thighs over his and then it hit him he had no idea what he was doing. 

The sudden rush of heat to Steve's face had nothing to do with arousal. Times had changed, he reminded himself. There was nothing to be embarrassed about, nothing wrong with what they were doing, even if Steve didn't quite know where these new feeligs between them had come from. He took a breath. He wanted to get closer in that way to Bucky so badly the impatient throbbing of his cock made it hard to think.

“Don't we need... something slippery?” Saying it made his face burn hotter, but Steve had heard enough jokes about “the lube” by now to know he would hurt Bucky without it. 

Bucky didn't seem to care either way. “Yeah, I guess.” He stretched behind him and dug into the pocket of his coat, handing Steve a small bottle of Russian-branded oil. “Got desperate once. Rifle needed it. Don't know why I still have it.” 

Steve dimly wondered how long Bucky had had these clothes. If they'd come from the Red Room he wished he could claw them off all over again. 

Apparently he wasn't moving fast enough. Bucky went for his belt and pushed Steve's pants past his hips. “Come on,” a cold metal hand wrapped around his cock. Sucking in a breath, Steve pried it away. The pressure felt so good he really would embarrass himself if he didn't.

He slicked the stuff Bucky had given him—might have been olive oil—onto his cock, balanced himself on one hand, held his breath, and pushed inside him.

Bucky let out a startled sound. His eyes went wide and then he squeezed them shut as though there were something he was afraid of seeing, but after a few short gasps he opened them again, looked at Steve above him and that seemed to calm him. It hurt though, Steve could see that. For a moment he knelt drowning in embarrassment. He didn't know what the hell he was doing. He was ready to ask if Bucky wanted him to stop when Bucky dug his fingers into Steve's ass and urged him to move his hips.

Steve fell forward onto his hands. The heat and closeness of Bucky tight around him was such an overload of sensations he thought he would come right then, but his hips started a tentative rhythm on their own and Bucky let go only to slide his hands up to grip there instead. “Come on. Don't hold back,” he bit the words out. “Do it hard.”

Steve gritted his teeth. Did Bucky think he had missed the pain on his face a moment ago? “Why?” he growled against Bucky's cheek. “So you can punish yourself?”

 _Yes,_ Bucky said in the lowering of his eyes, but he wet his lips and ran a hand over Steve's broad shoulder and down the muscle of his arm. “Wanna feel how strong you are...” he breathed. “Like knowing you could stop me, if you had to.”

Steve didn't believe him. Bucky liked knowing he could take care of himself now so he wouldn't have to feel guilty about putting a bullet in his head and leaving him. Steve brimmed with anger and desperation all over again, and the urge to drive his need into Bucky took over, tentativeness forgotten. Steve's body dragged over Bucky's erection trapped between them and Bucky moaned with the friction, his head twisting to one side. He bent one leg up, foot brushing Steve's hip, the movement pulling Steve deeper, everything slick with the oil spread around. Another thrust, and Bucky's whole body shook with a broken sound, shocked by a jolt of sensation, and when Bucky clawed at Steve's shoulders for him to keep going Steve figured he was doing something right.

“That's it, Steve...” Bucky rasped up at him. “Always got a plan... Think you can fuck the Red Room out of me?”

There was sweat between them now, the slide of Steve's stomach over Bucky's cock perfect and fast. Steve hadn't realized how fast and how hard he was thrusting into the heat of him until he had to slow a little to catch his breath enough to answer, “Still working on the stupid.”

Bucky laughed, a real laugh that warmed Steve down to his toes. Steve bent and kissed him and ground his head into the floor until Bucky broke away, fingers digging into Steve's hips again. “Do it.” Steve wasn't sure whether Bucky begged or demanded. “Come on. Make me feel something good. Not what HYDRA or the Russians did to me. Just you.”

 _Oh God..._ Steve didn't know where his voice went, but the words shuddered through him and it took everything he had to hold in the orgasm that wanted to follow. He grabbed Bucky's wrists and pinned them to the floor and his hips sped up on their own.

“That's all I want.” He wanted to drag Bucky out of that ice river, rekindle the life in him and bring him home safe so the Winter Soldier nightmare never had to happen. He wanted to make Bucky understand... “That's all I want, Buck.” Steve could barely talk his throat was so dry. “I want to fuck you so good you won't be able to think about running.”

Bucky threw his head back. He wrapped his legs around Steve's waist, drawing him even deeper, and Steve didn't know what the change of angle did, but Bucky's moans got more broken with each thrust and the more he fell apart under him, the harder and more erratic Steve's pace became. Bucky's eyes flew open wide. His back arched and he rolled his hips up and then he was shuddering, a look coming over his face like he was cracking to pieces, a hot rush of stickiness coating Steve's stomach.

There was a lot of it, but Steve didn't stop until Bucky went boneless beneath him, too wrung-out to move. He let go of Bucky's wrists and before he knew it Steve was slumping forward against Bucky's shoulder, panting into his sweat-damp skin, his own orgasm crashing through him like a violent eruption. 

It drained him and left him just as wrung-out. He rolled off Bucky to one side and Bucky sat up, still gasping for breath. He sniffled and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He was crying, or trying not to. Maybe he needed to. 

Steve put a hand on his arm. “Hey...” He didn't know what else to say. “It's going to be all right.”

Bucky shook his head. “It's not that.” He wiped his eyes once more. “I just need a minute.”

Reluctantly, Steve got up and went to the tiny bathroom to clean himself off. Back when it had been just the two of them in Brooklyn, he never imagined one day he'd be looking at himself flushed in the mirror wiping Bucky's come off his chest. Then again Steve never imagined armies from outer space or friends who could fly either.

He heard Bucky shuffling around over the sound of the water, but Bucky didn't go near the stairs and try to slip away. By the time Steve came out, Bucky had dug a couple of old woolen blankets from the stacks of supplies and spread them on the floor. He went into the bathroom after Steve was done and turned the shower on. 

With the prisoners secure and nothing else to do until the quinjet could fly in, Steve lay down and decided a little rest wouldn't hurt. He was tired and groggy, but he listened for Bucky to turn the water off. When he came padding toward Steve and sprawled out beside him on the blanket, Steve breathed easier that he wasn't going to run and closed his eyes. 

***

Steve's arm was asleep, solid heat pressed to his chest. He realized he was curled around Bucky and had both arms around him, his face against the back of Bucky's bare shoulder. Grey daylight streaked through the vents high above and Steve lifted his head to look at Bucky in the light for the first time since 1945. Bucky's dark hair was a tousled mess and, sound asleep, he wore a halfway relaxed expression. Steve wished he could draw him like that, afraid he might never see Bucky that close to peace again after what the Red Room had done. 

Steve had nothing to draw with so he settled for laying his head back down and feeling the rise and fall of Bucky's breathing. Bucky used to seem so sturdy to him, easy to lean on when Steve could barely stand after getting the breath punched out of him and impossible to fend off when Bucky maneuvered him around their tiny bathroom, trying to clean the cuts on his face.

 _You can't take on every jerk who has it coming, Steve,_ Bucky would say, frustrated. _One of these days one of them's gonna keep swinging until you can't get back up and I can't always be there._

Steve's eyes watered. After everything Bucky had been through, he had still been there to help fend off Illyin's thugs in the street. He didn't feel so sturdy right now though; he felt small and vulnerable. It was sixty-eight years too late, but Steve wanted to curl tighter around him and keep the Russians from taking him. 

The urge brought back the memory of that thirty mile march back from Austria. Bucky wouldn't admit he needed to stop and rest, but they had POWs in worse condition who didn't have the luxury of denial. Steve had coaxed Bucky to sit with him against a tree and within five minutes Bucky slumped against his shoulder and fell asleep. Steve hadn't known what else to do but wrap an arm around his waist and hold Bucky upright against his side, telling himself he couldn't let Bucky fall over in the mud. No one had thought anything of it, but Steve remembered the warmth of Bucky's body and wishing they could stay that way. 

Dugan had come by. He looked Bucky over and told Steve Bucky had been as good as dead in that camp long before HYDRA took him to Zola. Steve heard the rest of the story later. Bucky had come in with walking pneumonia off the battlefield and gotten beaten worse than Steve ever had for mouthing off to the guards. Between that and the hard labor building HYDRA rockets, it hadn't looked good for him. Figuring him for dead anyway, HYDRA had dragged him off to Zola for "interrogation" and experiments. 

It made Steve want to throw up, thinking about Bucky suffering all that while Steve paraded on stage with chorus girls punching a fake Hitler for show. And this—Steve's numb hand brushed the metal of Bucky's left arm—the nightmare of the Winter Soldier was what Bucky got for standing by his best friend and giving his life for his country.

Steve blinked back tears. Bucky deserved better. 

A hand closed around Steve's wrist. Steve hadn't realized he had wrapped his arms tighter. Instantly, he let go and got his arm out from under him. He didn't want to have to fight off a startled Bucky in his sleep. 

The blood flowing back through the numbness hurt. Bucky opened his eyes and rolled onto his back, snorting at Steve working his wrist to fight the pins and needles feeling.

“Only have that problem half the time now.” 

His voice had a little more life in it than yesterday. Steve folded his arms behind his head and tried to encourage the lighter mood.

“You know, I feel different. You're supposed to, right, after your first time?”

Bucky looked at him as if he couldn't believe Steve was serious, then rolled his head away. “Great. Something else to feel guilty about.”

“Why? Because of how we were brought up? Some things have changed for the better, Buck. Men marry each other now.”

Bucky shook his head. “I'm not ready to think about the queer stuff yet. But, come on, Steve. I remember you were waiting for the right person, some girl you were gonna marry and have twenty kids with. You wanted someone special. Definitely not this.”

“Bucky...” Steve laid a hand on his arm. He didn't know how to say it, so he just said it. “Peggy said something to me the night after you died. She said if I had any respect for you, I would respect that you thought I was worth risking your life for. I thought about it and decided that if I picked myself up and did something worthwhile and took HYDRA down, then you wouldn't have died for nothing. It wasn't enough, and being Captain America still isn't enough. I missed you more, the more friends I made. Then it turns out after both of us dying and all those years frozen I haven't lost you after all, the one person who gave a damn about me before I became useful. So how's that for special?”

Bucky raised his head, but couldn't quite look at him. “I'm not-”

Steve cut him off before he could argue he wasn't the person Steve remembered anymore. “Just give yourself a chance. I know you don't think you deserve a new life, but you didn't make it this long because you're some mindless killer. You're still here because something inside you must have resisted pretty hard if they had to put you on ice when they didn't need you. With what you know about Department X, and people like Ilyin running around, you could still help your country.”

This time Bucky did meet Steve's eyes and Steve could see he wanted to believe what Steve was telling him. He wanted to protest too, but was too tired. 

“Steve...” 

He gave up and rolled against Steve's side. For a moment, Steve thought Bucky just wanted to lie there and savor the warmth of another human being, but—giving into something—Bucky lifted his head and pressed his mouth to the top of Steve's bare shoulder. 

The pressure of Bucky's lips lingered. It was a long way from the playful elbowing and name-calling that passed for affection, and too close to Steve's neck not to shiver. 

Taking in his reaction, Bucky made a decision and raised himself onto his elbow. He laid his metal hand on Steve's chest to hold him still and dragged his mouth from the tingling imprint of where he had kissed Steve a moment ago to the place he had bitten him last night.

The response in Steve's body was as instant as it had been then, cock throbbing with the memory of teeth and heat. Bucky sucked and licked the skin and circled a cold finger over Steve's nipple. With a soft moan, Steve arched into him. He didn't know whether it was the old Bucky coming out who'd had half the girls in Brooklyn lined up for a reason or a reflection of the Winter Soldier's calculated efficiency, but Bucky knew what his mouth and his touch was doing. He draped one leg over Steve and in a moment of painfully sweet friction slid across Steve's body so he could support himself on his left arm and touch Steve with the real one. Bucky's groin brushed his and Steve couldn't help rubbing up against him. Bucky let out a sound that could have been a laugh or a groan, then dropped his head to Steve's chest and for a moment just seemed to want to breathe him in. His hair tickled. His fingers did too against Steve's ribs as they crept downard, and it felt like being taken by surprise when Bucky made quick work of belt and slipped a hand in to get Steve's cock free. 

For a stupid moment Steve lay taut and pounding with anticipation, focused on nothing but the warm pressure of Bucky's palm on oversensitive skin and wondering what Bucky was going to do. Bucky slithered down and Steve's eyes slammed shut, the head of his cock quickly enveloped in the wet heat of Bucky's mouth. Steve's whole body jerked with a choked cry at the shock of how good it felt. He had been in the Army; guys talked about this like it was the best thing there was, but none of that prepared him. Bucky cupped his balls and stroked the underside of him with his thumb until Steve didn't think he could get any harder. Then Bucky's fist was around him where his mouth wasn't and Steve was fisting the blanket and biting into his bottom lip so Ilyin and Hoch and the other prisoners couldn't hear the sounds he made.

Steve closed his eyes, saw Bucky underneath him again and the pleasure breaking through him as he came, as though his body could barely handle the intensity of it. Steve wondered how Bucky would feel inside him. He imagined Bucky pushing him onto his hands and knees with the enhanced strength of his bionic arm, handling him as easily as he used to, and letting him feel everything that had to be festering inside him after Steve had failed him. The serum made Steve strong; he could take it.

He got both hands in Bucky's hair and wound his fingers tight, pulling Bucky's head back so he could thrust into the wetness of his mouth and pull back to do it again. Bucky groaned around his cock as if he liked it and next Steve knew he was jerking his hips faster and coming before he could think about giving a warning. 

When it was over, Bucky rose to his knees, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Steve's cheeks—feverishly hot already—burned, the sight made him blush so badly. For a stupid moment while Steve caught his breath he just lay there watching the light play over the sculpted muscles of Bucky's bare chest and stomach and the angles of his handsome face, mentally sketching him and shading him in a way Steve wouldn't have dared back in Brooklyn a lifetime ago. 

It seemed so stupid that they had known each other since 1930 yet it had taken both of them dying and becoming different people to figure this part out. Stupid, and yet Steve couldn't shake the feeling that they must be meant to be.

Lightheaded, he sat up. “Where'd you learn how to do that?” 

Bucky snorted. “I remember what feels good. First time should be like that.” 

The smile on Steve's face was probably a dumb one, but he was braver without the part of his brain that hadn't quite switched back on yet. He cupped Bucky's jaw and kissed him. His mouth had a salty taste to it which Steve realized to his embarrassment was his own. Bucky's tongue traced his lower lip, pushed into Steve's mouth to tease the tip of his tongue, and Steve's knees went weak. 

The computer-phone in his pocket dinged with a message. Bucky pulled away and the moment fell apart between them.

“You got prisoners to hand over, Cap.”

Reluctantly, Steve forced himself to get back to the mission and focus. He read the message. Extraction would be there within ten minutes.

He got up and pulled on the rest of his uniform. Bucky did the same with his jacket and shirt. 

“You ready to go home, Buck?” Steve asked as Bucky zipped himself up. 

Bucky looked at him a long time, but when he pulled his leather glove over his metal hand and tucked away his gun Steve knew the answer and his heart dropped.

“I want to, Steve.” He was choosing his words carefully. “There's a lot I want to make right, especially now, so I can't go with you. One of the things the Red Room did was make me believe I belonged there. So before I tell your people anything, I gotta trust they're the good guys.”

 _Isn't it enough that I trust them?_ Steve wanted to argue, but the truth was he didn't and worse, faith in him was what had plunged Bucky into this nightmare in the first place. He thought about knocking Bucky out and dragging him onto the quinjet, but that wouldn't make Steve any better than the Red Room or HYDRA and it damn sure wasn't respecting him any.

Steve tried to accept that this was what Bucky felt he needed to do. He thought about how hard it must have been for Bucky to walk away from him the night before he had shipped out, afraid of what he couldn't stop Steve from doing while he was gone. He thought about how hard it must have been for Peggy to listen to him crash that plane over the radio, but none of that came close to this. Bucky could put a bullet in his head the minute he got out of here. 

Boots sounded on the ground above. As soon as Steve opened the door the bunker would be crawling with SHIELD agents. As he climbed the stairs, Steve held onto the hope that Bucky would change his mind, that Natasha would be up there and Bucky would trust her. But when Steve opened the bunker door and glanced back from the top of the stairs, Bucky was gone. There must have been another way out Steve hadn't known about.

He stared at the spot where Bucky had stood a few seconds ago and in his mind saw the blue and white Alps speeding by and the ice beneath. It felt like he'd had Bucky by the fingertips, so close to pulling him to safety, only for him to fall away all over again. But Bucky knew where to find him. Steve just had to hope he had listened to what Steve had said and that he would.


End file.
